Coming Soon: Fast 100GB Notebook Drives

If you're looking for another excuse to ditch your desktop in favor of a desktop-replacement notebook, here's a small one.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has announced availability of the Travelstar 7K100, the top-of-the line 100GB capacity in its 7200RPM series of 2.5-inch notebook drives (shown below with PATA connector). While 7200RPM notebook drives aren't new, ones in this capacity are. Hitachi runs neck and neck with Seagate, whose own 7200RPM 100GB notebook drive (the Momentus 7200.1) has gone to some notebook vendors and will ship to retailers by the end of the month.



Buying a notebook with this drive won't be cheap. Hitachi says that Dell plans to use it in its top-of-the-line Inspiron XPS Gen 2 gaming system, which starts at $2350. Sure enough, on the configuration Web page for the Inspiron XPS Gen 2, a 100GB hard drive is available although the site says it may delay your laptop's ship date.

Curiously, the 100GB 7200RPM drive option is the same price as the 60GB 7200RPM option, although there might be a slight delay in getting the notebook since the drive is so new.

Users shouldn't notice a hit in battery life. Hitachi says that it made enhancements such that the 7200RPM notebook drive has roughly the same power requirements as a comparable 5400RPM notebook drive. We haven't tested this claim, though. The drive supports SATA and PATA interfaces.